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Tuesday, February 26, 2019

Hallo. I say that in the confidence that no one reads this anymore barring Illustrious Acquaintance who will read this just to be rude. Anyhoo, I was requested to blog in order to promote my new chapbook, The Lucy Temerlin Institute for Broken Shapeshifters’ Guide to Starving Boys- Their Salient Features, How to find Them, How to Care For Them After They Die and Four Considerations(are overtly long titles obnoxious? You bet yer dern tootin’ they are!) and since I don’t really do anything to promote my work because I am stupid, this seemed like the honourable and smart thing to do. It behooves us however to ask why we are promoting things on a blog no one reads. But tis not ours to question why. So without further ado, here are some good reasons to buy this chapbook.

You will be supporting a small press and a very small writer who can’t get a job. And what do you do when you can’t get a job? You write a hecking chapbook, that’s what.

It’s not very long which is great if you don’t like my writing but for some reason have to read my book, which is a horrible situation to be in.

It has a long title. This is not a good reason as we have already stated

I think we can all agree that none of these are good reasons to do anything barring the first reason of supporting a small press and a very small writer who is combating unemployment with the extremely lucrative strategy of chapbook-writing. Andnow, after that horrific attempt at promoting my chapbook, I will now attempt to promote an event.You should go to this event because they made this great poster for it.

Once upon a time, Nasser made a movie called Mugam and in my hostel, the girls were like you can watch that movie for Roja’s sari alone. Similarly, you can attend this event for the poster alone. Unfortunately, Mugam was so harrible, the sari was just ok and the movie somehow managed to give two girls viral fever but if racism has taught us anything, it is not to think one thing will happen just because another thing did.

You should also go for this event because it will have paleontological math problems. I don’t know what that is. I was very bad at math in school and continue to be bad at math now. So at least I am consistent in that, which is good.

It just occurred to me that I did not provide links to buy my chapbook wtf please buy the chapbook inprint or ebook form at the Blaft site or in ebook form at Amazon

Now back to the event. You should also go to the event because it will have all sorts of interesting people and snacks. I don’t know if there will be snacks. I’m guessing some people will have weed and other drugs but don’t tell anyone I said that and don’t do drugs either.

And now, just so this doesn’t seem like a purely promotional blog post, I will write about other things

I got D&D dice they are cheap and sparkly now all I need are some friends and I can play D&D like all the cool people

Someone told me that “the graphic novel Housewives at Play” was about women fighting the patriarchy and I thought hmmm sounds like porn tho but I was like yay that’s so great because I mean what else do you say when people say women fighting patriarchy, you don’t want to be rude, especially when it comes to women fighting the patriarchy. Anyway, because I’m stupid I believed them so just fyi, Housewives at Play is not about women fighting the patriarchy. Or maybe it is. Tbh the word patriarchy sometimes makes me think of a large bird. Great book if you're into bewbs tho

In the walking park someone put up a sign requesting all to not wear perfume because it pollutes the morning air whaaaaaaat

I did play D&D with Rakesh Khanna from Blaft and it was very great. I don’t think I played it correctly but still it was great.

Myself and an acquaintance were held hostage in a room for about 27 years by this aggressive and possibly drunk moth and it was the size of a hecking bat I’m not even kidding

No waitees, I read this short story called Mud by La.Sa. Ramamirtham (translated from Tamil) and it was amazing please read it

I wrote a novel.

I did not write a novel.

I killed a number of house plants

I released a platoon of moths that were living in the tamarind jar which made me think of the many worms I must have consumed unwittingly. I don’t think I ate any moths. I may have eaten some moths.

These are the interesting things that have happened to me in the last couple years. In conclusion, please attend the aforementioned event and please buy my chapbook though you don’t have to if you don’t want to. This is the cover btw which I should have probably posted at the beginning of this sry bai

Wednesday, October 1, 2014

My second collection of short fiction called Things We Found
During the Autopsy is now available from Blaft. This the front cover, designed by
Prabha Mallya.

And this is the back cover.

And this is the trailer for my book, which I like very much because
it contains, among other things, someone performing superdance, a man being
enthusiastic while holding a trumpet, and Eye Brand cola.

Also,
there have been a few illustrious people who were kind enough to send me rather
wonderful emails/comments- sorry for not replying but please know that I appreciate
your words very, very much and I thank you for them.

And before I go, one last time, with feeling

Thursday, June 14, 2012

This blog post is late because, to quote the school leave letter of my youth, I was suffering from fever. This blog post title is from the the song If You Come Today which I watched recently because I like to watch it from time to time because I like to watch it. The
comments section for this song offers varied forms of entertainment because people
generally say the same thing, namely this stupid Indian song is so stupid
because he sounds like all those stupid Indians who talk English and sound stupid. There will also be those illustrious people who feel the need to speak for India Shining as a whole by saying ‘please don’t think this is how we talk, most educated
Indians speak better English than most Americans (this, for some reason, is something to be proud of) and India is a rising superpower in the world today
thanks to IT industry’ I feel it is the English that makes this song such a
popular conversation piece. If it had been in Kannada, I seriously doubt we
would be using it as a platform to humbly beg people in first world countries not to think badly
of us and our cultures.

Then I read
something by someone called Brendan O’Neill. Who it is? Frankly, I am very much
not aware. I do know that he wrote this article on the revolutionary potential of the Queen’s English. He means that like seriously yougaiz. I’m sure this piece was probably written for
British people in the Britain so as a coloured woman on the internet, I have
yet again become #outragefail even tho I aint even mad tho. So why blog about
this? Mainly because I couldn’t think of anything else to blog about. But also,
because for some strange reason in my one number country, we feel the sun is shining
out of the backside of the Queen’s English, and I feel like we speak “Indian”
English but we just HAVE to write in the Queen’s English and that needs
to be our standard and if it isn't you are against Indian culture. Even though writing in English is also against Indian culture, but it's like ok if it's in the Queen's English but it's not ok also. It's complicated yougaiz. Anyway, I feel like these complicated feelings are what makes people participate in that favourite Indian humiliation game
called ‘you can’t even write/speak proper English’. This is what makes people
hate on Rajkumar on the internet, love him “ironically” and apologize to the
world at large because he had the audacity to sing a song in English which
isn’t really English and we’re like so sorry about that.

Also apparently, "Despite the
sending out of a request for nominations for chairman, vice-chairman,
administrator, webmaster and membership secretary, no one came forward to fill
any role," which reminds me of this thing I read that goes ‘Due to
circumstances beyond our control, the annual meeting of the Vestal Virgins will
no longer be held’. Anyway, basically what Brendan O’Neill sir is actually saying?
Actually he is basically saying this.

Actually I just put that there because I think it's neat. I will now awkwardly attempt to connect this image to what I was saying. Brendan O'Neill sir is saying that the Queen’s English is not
only neat like a spider playing little drumlets, it also has the power to
bring us all together and make us happy and revolutionary like the people in bank
commercials. There are many interesting things that are said in this
article but I herewith quoteth some of the few beauty blossoms from this bouquet
of awesomeness because I feel I have heard many of these things said in our selfsame onenumber country, so please don't think this is all about being mean to a white dude by taking what he has said completely out of context. It's also about other random people who I can't remember who have said things I can't exactly recall. So that makes this all ok but just to be safe, I am so sorry also.

"More
fundamentally, the ha-hahing at the folding of QES speaks to a society which is
increasingly allergic to the idea of a standard language, and to standards
themselves,"

In other words, “What's
wrong with the world mama, people living like they ain't got no mama”. I just quoted BEP on my blog. I have wanted to use that line for a while now and this gave me golden opportunity to do so. So there it is. I guess this is what happens when people have no standards.

"But
in order to engage with society, with its public life and politics, you need to
fully understand its language."

What this actually means is “But in order to engage with society, with
its public life and politics, you need to talk theQueen’s English because I don’t like your language so I shall
heretofore pretend like I can’t understand anything you’re saying.” So you’re like LOL! And illustrious
acquaintance is like oh my God what is happening I don’t know what that means! Speak English! This is India and you should speak English like all the great
people who are great. And you’re like oh that’s Laugh Out Loud, Ell Oh Ell. L for laugh, O for Out, L for loud, LOL. Also pronouced lolololo. And they
are like what are you saying?!!? I can't understand you anymore, you're not the same person I once knew! What happened to you? Is something wrong in your personal life? Something is wrong in your personal life and it's making you speak in tongues. So you say haha instead and they know exactly what you're talking about.

There is this notion that the LOL folks are
supposed to know how to talk “properly” but they refuse to just to make things
difficult for everyone. Why? Because there’s something wrong with the world
mama, people living like they ain’t got no mama.

"It is
insulting to assume that young people, especially poor young people, are
incapable of mastering standard language, of conquering English and all its
glorious complications, and so instead must be allowed to write ‘potatoe’
instead of ‘potato’."

Because I'm just a silly girl, I thought English was a language which is popularly used for the communication purposes. But apparently, it's something that needs to be conquered, like a woman. I know this because in this one book I read, the dude said I WILL CONQUER YOU to this femaleperson and then they had sex. I feel that the Tamil equivalent of this is I WILL TIE MARRIAGE NECKLACE AROUND YOUR NECK. This seems to imply that conquering English is about having sex with it and tying marriage necklace around its neck which is not unlike the people fornicating with books, no?

Anyway, all that was just bizarre and made no sense. Basically what I wanted to say was what's wrong with the world mama, people acting like they ain't got no mama. The engsters are speaking English but it is not English because it's poorpeople English so we should make them be more better by making them learn the Queen's English. This is a super idea in 2012 because this form of English was basically all the rage in the late eighteen hundredsand ensures people write 'potato' because what in God's name could a 'potatoe' be??!!! Must be some poorpeople thing. Or maybe it's something they do in India with cows or something, idk.

“When
it comes to language, the rule is that the more you know the rules, the more
you can play around with them and twist them for effect, if you like. But you
need to know the rules.”

“When
people doll up declining linguistic standards as ‘cultural diversity’, they’re
really making a virtue out of dumbness, turning illiteracy into just a variant
form of literacy.”

Those are like sametosame opposites, no? Anyway,
so you’re like LOL! And your illustrious acquaintance goes oh my God what is happening I don’t know what that
means! Speak English! This is India and you should speak English like
all the great
people who are great. And you’re like, yougaiz! I DO know
good English! See? I have this tattoo on my elbow that is a certification of
genuine authenticity of my knowledge of the rules of the Queen’s English! And
they’re like, oh so you’re just playing around with language and experimenting
and breaking new barriers in the realm of word usage and narrative forms, you
brave pioneering linguistic unicorn you!

This certification is very important
because there is a difference between Queen’s English Approved Declining
Linguistic Standards and Conventional Declining Linguistic Standards. The
certification will essentially let us know when to applaud for literary genius and
when to make fun of people for being stupid or for being from another country/section
of society.

"The
refusal to uphold a standard language is really a refusal to be universal."

This is absolutely NOT like saying ‘ohai! I'm the centre of the motherfucking universe! Let's everybody talk like how I want you to talk so yougaiz can be universal too. If you say no, I'm telling everyone you're racist against English and the universe.' It's not like that at all yougaiz. Anyway, I guess my main problem with this idea of standardized
English is really my own ignorance. I don’t know who decides what is universal.
I want to know who gets to decide what is right and wrong with English. If
anyone can do this, I want to know if I can also standardize English because I
like to tell people that I am right and they are wrong (from what I can tell,
this is the most important criterion for the standardization of English). And if
I can’t do this, I want to know why not.

I want to end this on a totally awkward
note by talking about my former blog post about ebooks. I feel like there is
this notion that if you love ebooks, you must by default hate other book forms
because liking ebooks means you hate reading? Or something? I also feel like when
you start snarking about a standardized form of English, there is this notion
that you must by default hate grammar, proper spelling or the Queen’s English in
general. Actually I think English grammar et all is pretty fabulous. But I also
think other forms of English exist because a standardized form doesn’t work
everywhere because we are all equal but we are not the same. And I feel that enforcing a standardized form of English ends up dismissing other forms, their worth
and the reasons why they exist. I also don't think lol is some kind of sign that English is about to fall down and die- I actually think it's a sign that the language is growing and evolving. Then again, I'm someone who quoted BEP on my blog.

So in conclusion, this is one of my new favourite sites
called Internet Poetry which I think is so fine, but many are thinking is killing English, poetry and
mankinds generally.

Oh and also see this? It is a louly write-up about a louly feature in the louly Elle magazine that was louly enough to say louly things about my writing and other people's writing also. I am
appreciating like anything and apologizing for not saying all that in the Queen’s
English and for my excessive use of the word louly.

live your lief

k

Sunday, May 27, 2012

Even
though I blogged extensively about Ronn Moss last weekend, it behooves me to
blog again this weekend because frankly, I feel like whining. What does this
mean? It means that this blog is having its period, so shit’s about to get all
emo and uterusy up in here. The good news is that I won’t be blogging next weekend.

So did yougaiz see this yougaiz? Tote bags, t-shirts, coffee mugs and fridge magnets that say Namaste, Bitches and have that folded Indian hands thing that Indians do, complete with exotic Indian religious symbols also. My first thought
when I saw this was, aw man I wanted to think of that first! The product
descriptor says, and I quote, “Enlightenment has never
been easier. Plus this way you don't have to go to India and swim in raw
sewage. (All proceeds benefit charity)”. I couldn’t help but agree on this one. Because
don’t you just hate it when you’re like all in India and stuff and swimming in
raw sewage, as it is your wont to do because you live in India, and you’re like
‘I wish I didn’t have to swim in raw sewage. I wish I could swim in chlorinated
peewater like the cool people in America.” I am hoping that they will make one another totebag that says
‘Vanakkam you moist motherfuckers’, with religious symbolism of Hinduism, Islam
and Christianity neatly lined up at the bottom, thus reflecting the unity in
diversity of this country.

That’s not even what I wanted to whine about, I wanted to whine about
ebooks. Or I wanted to whine about how other people are whining about ebooks.
I’ve always been a little flabbergasted by the good folks who have very strong
anti-ebook feelings, especially those who haven’t actually read one and on further
investigation, one discovers that they aren’t really sure what an ebook is,
they just know they reallyreally hate them and they suck. I know I’m being
superracist here but it seems like these illustrious folk always say the same
thing-

'One needs to be able to touch, smell, lick, and fornicate with
certain parts of the book’s binding in order to experience the real and truly complete
reading experience. Anything else is not reading. Also you can read the words on the pages if you want but this is not necessary.'

Ok first, wow. Second, am I missing something with this booksmell
thing? Because I feel like a lot of the books I have been unfortunate enough to
smell somehow managed to be sour, bitter and kind of like musty ass and once I may
have accidentally inhaled a small silverfish also. This may have been because
most of these books were not second or third hand books but eleventy-twelvty
hand books which spent a large amount of time on the pavement and people may
have peed on them at some point also. Which led me to think, hay maybe this
aspect of molesting your reading material as part of your reading experience is
actually a privilege. I say this as someone who has often not been able to
get my hands on “real” books, but I could access ebooks and podcasted
books which were available even in my tiny corner of the world and often for totes free. I think that eating and rubbing a book all over your body may
be one of many reading experiences. I don’t think it’s the only one, the real
one, the true one, the authentic one, the original one, or the best one ever. Not all of us have the means to buy and do that to our books. Many of us
may not want to do that also. I don’t think that means that we are not reading
because we are not reading like you are.

This gif has nothing to do with anything, much like the argument
that ebooks have no soul which quite frankly, is one of those things that makes
you feel embarrassed for the person who said it. Feel like it would be more
interesting if peeps said, I hate ebooks because they have no large intestine.

'Ebooks will make it easier for horrific, substandard literature to be
published.'

Oh noes! What are we going to do yougaiz??!!! Somebody call the book police so they can save us from the horrific, substandard literature!!!1 When peeps say things like hay if I was the king of the god of
everything, I wouldn’t let shit like Twilight get published and I'd teach everyone what good books are, it's scary like Scientology scary. I feel that people will always read things that other people will find horrific and substandard, but even if you don’t respect
what they’re reading, maybe we can respect their right to read and
like whatever they want to. Which I understand is superscary because if I don’t
like it, nobody else is allowed to like it either, right? I feel like the issue
here is actually ‘Ebooks will make it easier for horrific, substandard
literature to be published.’ Which is probably scary for a lot of people
who believe that certain people and certain kinds of writing don’t have a right
to be published or read.

'EBOOKS ARE KILLING REAL BOOKS!!!111 I FUCKING HATE THEM AND I WILL KILL
THEM ALL WITH MY FACE WHEN I FINISH TALKING ABOUT HOW MUCH I HATE EBOOKS AND DIGITAL
LITERATURE WHILE USING THIS DIGITAL FORMAT!!!1'

This kind of argument reminds me of the illustrious people who love to tell everyone that they “support gay couples” because unlike "real" couples, gay couples are gay people having gay sex, and if all you know
about homosexuality comes from porn, you believe these gay people are having
gay sex all the time which just makes them so gay. It’s similar to this je ne sais quoi that
makes us say gay marriage, like it is different from “real” marriage possibly because it consists of gay people having gay sex all the time.

If you work real hard and try to wrench your focus away from the gay sex
(which is hard, I know), one realizes that gay couples are just couples and gay marriage is just marriage. And if you take the 'e' and the scary internetedness away from the ebook, you find that the ebook is just a book. People
write them and other people read them and hate them or forget them or enjoy them and collect
them and take them along on vacay and if the thing isn’t DRMd to death, they
share them with other people. It’s a fucking book, whether you like the format or not and while it may not be in keeping with your romantic, privileged and narrow notions of what a book should be, ebooks (and audio
books and podcasts) make reading easier and a lot more accessible for a lot of
us.

I would like to end this with some anti-ebook quotes by two rather famous authors, which just goes to prove that ebooks really do suck and the ebook haters win.

Sunday, May 20, 2012

This blog post title is taken from the song ‘I’m Your
Man’ by Ronn Moss who is that guy who played Ridge Forrester on The Bold
and the Beautiful. This line is about taking melancholic people home in order
to stuff various baked goods into their eyes. Like ohai, you haz a sad? Come to
my house, I put LazeezDoubleChickenDoubleEggRoll in your face. This selfsame
song has another line that goes ‘if you want some fishes in your ocean, some
magic in your potion, I’m your man.’ And also ‘if you want some rhythm in your
tango, some fun in your fandango’. Anyway then he also says ‘Well I’m rough
around the edges but my poetry is smooth’. It sure is yougaiz! It is smooth
like…smooth things that are smooth! Makes a girl wish she had a roll in her
eyes. I also thought that maybe he’s saying ‘roll back in your ride’ but ‘roll
back in your eyes’ is more better.

Anyway now I need to do my Indianladyblogger duty and say something
about a certain article that appeared in a certain publication whose name
rhymes with Crimes of India. This certain article talked about the sexuals. I
had a lot of difficulty just processing this information because we all know
that people don’t have sex in India because it is against our culture. We
prefer to just leave such things to the West. Then how we came to have so much
of the population explosion in our country if we do not engage in the sexuals?
I don’t know yougaiz! It’s like, I just turned around and there were all these
brown people all over the place! Someone must have put them there! Ok so I
wanted to read the article again, because clearly I don’t really like myself,
but I can’t find it! It seems to be missing or I have not looked properly
enough because frankly, I didn’t really look for it. What was it about again,
the importance of breeding virginal women for betterment of the society or
something? Idk. Basically I just wanted to give that article the Great Things
About Virgin Women Who are Great Because They Are Great But Mostly Because They
are Virgins Award. I also want to give the following awards to-

White People are the Worst Things Evar Award to this article which apparently says the reason why
certain Indian news sites/tabloids were saying things like Breaking News! Why
is Aishwarya so fat? Find out why Aishwarya is so fat! is because of white
people. Or something. Because that's just something we as Indians would never do on our own because we don't know how to do such things. It's like how we don't know how to to do the sexuals either. Apparently you can find ample evidence of this Aishwaryabashing on a site
called Desimad.com which also has a Youtube channel with the following
disclaimer 'If you are expecting something sensible than please avoid this
channel.' Also want to say that this article gets this award, despite its use
of the term ‘yummy mummy’, which frankly is right up there with putting a roll
in someone’s eyes. Also fyi, youwhitegaiz are not solely responsible for
bringing your ebil body image issues and skin whitening issues to this fair
brown land of ours. You are solely responsible for bringing in homosexuality
and feminism. Just so we’re clear.

Musical Truths Among RapeyDouche Tweets Award goes to Sid Mallya who tweeted to say that 'Everyone wants there 15
minuets.' He later corrected ‘there’ to ‘their’, which is really great.

While we’re at it, I’d like to give out the following awards as
well.

The Amazing Carpet Award- This goes to
the rather illustrious individual who I encountered during my househunting
days. They had what can only be described as a mangy carpet spread out on the
mangy floor. When we walked in, said individual said, don’t step on the carpet.
I can only guess that they said that so we did not get any mange on our shoes.
And then, during the hard sell, they said, see I am giving you this place with
carpet also but you must not step on it. I believe this was also the
selfsameplace that had a mound of cracked ceramic in one room and this
apparently was the Italian design western toilet.

The I Hate Your Face Award- this goes
out to all those peeps who followed the ‘basically we don’t prefer to give to
unmarried bachelorspinsters. We appreciate families.’ rent policy. I totes
understand this because basically I don’t prefer the unmarried bachelor
spinsters either because they eat small children and pee on the floor and
refuse to use their reproductive organs for what the good lord intended.
Families on the other hand usually don’t eat their own children although they
may eat someone else’s. Some of them pee on the floor but it’s ok because they
are families.

I would like to keep whining about some of the other places/people I
encountered while househunting but this blog post is already too long. So I
will do that next week and leave you with this

All
About You by Ron Moss- There is a line in here that goes ‘it’s not about
your new agent’ and I thought he was saying ‘it’s not about your new
Asians.’

About Me

Kuzhali Manickavel is the author of the short story collections 'Insects Are Just like You and Me except Some of Them Have Wings' and 'Things We Found During the Autopsy', both available from Blaft Publications. She also has an email id and it goes like kuzhali (dot) ehm (at) gmail (dot) com